Page 11 - DMEA Week 40

DMEA terminAls & shiPPinG DMEA
Jordan announces September imports as Iraqi flows stabilise
miDDle eAst
JORDAn’s energy minister announced this week that the Hashemite kingdom had imported a total of 204,000 barrels of oil from Iraq during september under a new contract.
Minister Hala Zawati signed a memoran- dum of understanding (MoU) with Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister for Energy and Minister of Oil amir Ghadhban in February. is stated the intent for 10,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Iraqi crude to be trucked to Jordan’s Petroleum Re n- ery Co. at Zarqa.
In early september, the rst batch of Iraqi crude le kirkuk.
Deliveries proceeded uninterrupted on Octo- ber 1 and 2, but major social unrest in Iraq meant that shipments were not received the following two days. Zawati added that a delivery arrived on October 5, and that cargoes are anticipated to continue steadily.
Zawati said previously the bilateral deal included ows covering around 7% of Jordan’s current demand, buying the oil at a $16 per bar- rel discount to Brent in order to cover the trans- port and deviation in speci cations. In return, Iraqi goods exported through the port of Aqaba will receive preferential rates.
A tender was launched following the signing
of the MoU, with Jordanian rm Burj Al Hayat transport and trading declared the winner and receiving a deal to truck a total of 500,000 tonnes (3.67mn barrels) of crude from kirkuk.
Preliminary work to develop the 1mn bpd, $5bn Basra-Aqaba pipeline is thought to be imminent, with Iraqi Ministry of Oil (MoO) spokesperson Assem Jihad saying in July that “investment o ers from international compa- nies” were under evaluation on the basis of estab- lishing “the pipeline in return for a percentage thatwillbedeductedforeachexportedbarrel”.
is follows trips to Iraq earlier this year by Zawati and Jordan’s king Abdullah, with bilat- eral energy relations revealed to have been high on the agenda. e king’s visit was the rst by the monarch since 2008.™
Iran, China creating fleet of “ghost ships” to evade sanctions
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ABOUt one-third of the oil tankers owned by China’s COsCO shipping tanker (Dalian) have reportedly shut off their ship-tracking tran- sponders since the Us imposed sanctions on the company in late september for allegedly ship- ping Iranian crude.
“It is becoming a cat-and-mouse game, with the Us ratcheting up the sanctions while the Ira- nians [and their Chinese or other buyers] nd novel ways to circumvent these,” Bruno Vick- ers, the senior director for Asia at political risk group GPW in singapore, told Reuters, saying methods included frequent ownership changes, complex corporate structures and the turning o of the automatic identi cation system (AIs) transponders.
“turning o transponders is a tried and tested tactic that the Iranians have used before, creating a eet of ghost ships that cannot be tracked. It’s
not ideal for ship safety and undoubtedly there will be increased Us surveillance of suspect car- goes,” he added.
From september 30 to October 7, a total of 14 COsCO Dalian ships, six of which carry some oil, ceased sending location data from their AIs transponders, ship tracking data on Re nitiv Eikon, cited by the news agency, showed.
COsCO Dalian and its subsidiaries own 43 oil tankers, including 26 very large crude carriers (VLCCs), according to two disclosure documents issued by COsCO Dalian’s parent company, COsCO shipping Energy transpor- tation Co, on October 1. nine of the 14 ships o ine are VLCCs, according to the ship-track- ing data. e six ships carrying some oil were identi ed based on the ship-tracking data show- ing their draught, or how deep the vessels are sitting in the water.™
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